The Assault

by Brian Falkner

  “Not if we wipe them all out first,” Alizza said.

  Kezalu started singing again.

  The singing stopped as the vehicles pulled up to a barrier arm outside a guardhouse. At least ten heavily armed Pukes were standing around, watchful and alert. Chisnall felt all of their eyes upon him, as if any second one of them would spot that he was a fake and raise the alarm.

  A young soldier came out of the guardhouse. Yozi held up an ID tube, which the soldier inserted into a hand scanner.

  “Do you have a hardline?” Yozi asked. “All comms are down.”

  The soldier nodded as he handed back the tube. “Get a message to Base Defense, urgent. Tell them the outer perimeter defenses have been attacked. Sector twenty-seven. It could be the forerunner to a ground attack.”

  “Yes, sir!” The soldier ran back into the guardhouse.

  The barrier arm rose and the vehicles started to move.

  Into the base.

  Right into the heart of the mighty Bzadian war machine.

  Chisnall’s first impression was that Bzadians were masters of building with rock and stone. He had seen the base many times, studied it in fact from satellite imagery, but it was vastly different seeing it firsthand, and up close.

  The scale was almost unbelievable. Buildings, densely packed on wide streets, stretched as far as the eye could see. He knew from the satellite photos that the base covered over a hundred square kilometers of desert, centered around Uluru. But to drive into it was eye-popping. It was an entire city, built in the heart of the desert.

  The buildings, often two or three stories high, were constructed of stone blocks. Most were circular or oval in shape. Some were squarish, but with the rounded corners that were a feature of Bzadian architecture.

  Many of the buildings were adorned with statues, standing on either side of the entranceway or peering down from the rooftops like gargoyles. They were like nothing he had ever seen before: fierce, jagged-jaw monsters with elongated skulls and deep-set eyes. Chisnall wasn’t sure whether these were mythical creatures or actual animals from Bzadia. No human knew what the Bzadians’ home planet was like.

  Walls were missing off some buildings and roofs off others. The stone surfaces were inherently strong, and the curved walls allowed pressure waves to flow around them, but even so, he couldn’t see a single building that had not been damaged by the missile attack. The head of one of the statues was lying in the middle of the road, staring at them with malevolent stone eyes.

  Occasionally, Chisnall would find Kezalu staring down at him from his perch on the fifty-cal. Chisnall was careful to keep his face emotionless and not to show the elation he felt at the hammerlike blow that had been dealt to the aliens’ military stronghold.

  They passed what appeared to be barracks, mess halls, officers’ quarters, and supply stores and armories. Few had escaped unscathed.

  Vehicles had been hard hit as well, blown across streets and into buildings by the force of the explosions. Many were still burning fiercely. They passed an airfield that was now just a hole in the ground. The only way Chisnall knew it was an airfield was from the row of rotorcraft jumbled into a pile of twisted metal in the corner. He wondered if this was Central Field.

  Ambulances were everywhere, appropriated from Australian hospitals. In some places dead alien soldiers were laid out in long rows.

  Fallen rubble and impassable craters closed many of the roads, and it took a long time for the patrol to wind its way through the desolation toward Uluru. They were just turning to back out of a blocked-up thoroughfare when there was a large explosion to the southwest. They all turned to see a cloud of smoke billowing skyward.

  “The unexploded missile?” Chisnall asked. The blast had come from that direction.

  “I think so,” Yozi said. “Perhaps they decided it was safer to detonate it.”

  “Probably,” Chisnall said, knowing that it was much more likely the bomb-disposal team had managed to open the control panel. The booby traps were very well hidden. And very deadly.

  The headquarters of the dreaded Bzadian secret police, the PGZ, was to the north of Uluru, in a part of the base that had been relatively unscathed by the attack. The going was no faster here, though, as the roads were full of vehicles, moving in all directions.

  They had to pull over to the side at one point and wait for a line of huge alien battle tanks to pass. The tanks had no tracks but moved on four large, ball-shaped wheels. The main gun was a long barrel protruding from a dome-shaped turret at the top. Their heavily armored circular hulls were virtually impregnable. The hulls spun at high speed in battle, and even armor-piercing shells just ricocheted off before they could explode. The earth shook and the Land Rover rattled on its springs as the massive tanks rumbled past.

  In a stone city of war, guarded by fierce gargoyles and high-tech weapons, the headquarters of the PGZ still managed to look more menacing than its surroundings. Four stories high, it towered over the one- and two-story buildings around it. There were no gargoyles. It did not need them. Built of a darker stone than the other buildings, it looked like a castle with high, turreted walls. Rooms curved out from the sides of the building. Light burned through narrow oval windows, gleaming like animal eyes in the sparse morning light.

  Once again Chisnall felt the cold strangeness. The intuition that had never failed him. This was a bad place. A place of bad things. A place of bad people.

  There were no signs of any kind on the building, nor on the tall, jagged wall that surrounded it. Two heavy metal gates provided the only way in or out of the compound. There was no visible security presence, but as their vehicles pulled to a halt outside, a pair of guards emerged from a watch house just inside the gate and waited, weapons in hand, for them to emerge from their vehicles.

  “Get the humans ready,” Yozi said, and walked over to the gate. He spoke to the guards and after a moment one of them turned and disappeared inside the main entrance to the dark castle.

  Chisnall and Brogan covered the two SAS men with their sidearms and motioned for them to get down off the tray of the Land Rover.

  Yozi turned back. “ID tubes, everybody.” He motioned for them to approach the gate.

  Bzadian ID tubes were a matching pair of blue-metal tubes, about the size of a pen, worn on the shoulders like an epaulet. Chisnall unclipped the one from his right shoulder and held it in front of him. The one on his left shoulder he deliberately left alone. It looked exactly like an ID tube but was something else entirely.

  The PGZ guard took the tube from him and examined it before inserting it into a scanner unit on his waist. Chisnall waited calmly. The ID was good. Chisnall was sure of that. Human forgers had cracked the Bzadian ID codes months ago, and it was a real ID tube, taken from a Bzadian POW, recoded to Chisnall’s profile. There was a moment’s pause before it confirmed, with a buzz and a blue light, and the guard handed the tube back to him with three short nods.

  The other members of his team and of Yozi’s unit all passed their tubes through the gate for checking, taking turns to cover the prisoners as they did so. By the time the guard had finished checking the IDs, the first guard reemerged from the castle, followed by a number of PGZ officers.

  It was hard not to cringe a little at the sight of the blood-red uniforms, but a little fear might not look out of place. From what he’d heard, the average Bzadian was more scared of their secret police than humans were.

  The gate opened slowly, scraping off to one side, and the guard indicated that Yozi and Chisnall should escort the prisoners inside.

  Brogan passed next to him and murmured, “If things get hairy, Fleming is going to try to create a diversion.”

  Bennett was struggling to stay upright now. The long ride had not done any good to his injured leg. His fierce grimace showed that it was only through sheer determination that he was able to retain his balance as he and Fleming walked ahead of Chisnall and Yozi into the compound. The SAS men were the toughest soldiers Chisnall had ev
er met, and it was hard not to admire them, but he forced himself to show only contempt for the men.

  The smallest of the officers seemed to be in charge. He looked to be quite old, although Bzadian ages were difficult to gauge. He had deep-set eyes like two dark caves and high, protruding cheekbones. His thin, reedy lips were tightly compressed. He stepped ahead of the others and introduced himself with a quick Bzadian salute.

  “Goezlin,” the PGZ man said, extending the buzzing middle syllable of his name.

  “Yozi.” He returned the salute.

  “Chizna.” Chisnall followed suit.

  It occurred to him how bizarre it was that a sixteen-year-old human boy with little more than two years’ combat training was standing in front of a high-ranked officer in the most feared organization in the enemy army. He forced himself to focus. Everything he said and did here had to be perfect.

  “Who captured them?” Goezlin asked.

  Yozi indicated Chisnall with a sideways nod.

  “Where?”

  “Benda Hill,” Chisnall said. “Their uniforms are of pilots, but from their location, we suspect they were forward spotters for the raid.”

  “The outer defenses in that area have been severely damaged,” Yozi said. “It did not look like random missiles. I have alerted Base Defense to prepare for possible infiltrators or maybe a ground attack.”

  “We were able to pass right through the defensive line near where we captured the humans,” Chisnall agreed. “The fence, the guard towers, the minefield—all gone.”

  Goezlin’s eyes peered into Chisnall’s, and he wondered if he had said too much.

  “What unit are you from?” Goezlin asked, although the answer was clearly marked on Chisnall’s uniform.

  “Thirty-Fifth Scout Battalion,” Chisnall said steadily.

  But why had Goezlin asked?

  “You’re new to the base?” Again the narrow, probing eyes.

  “We arrived yesterday, sir,” Chisnall said, carefully controlling his breathing.

  “And how did you come to capture the humans?”

  Chisnall repeated his story of being left behind by the rotorcraft but got only a stony silence. Goezlin suspected something, of that he was sure. But why and what, he could not work out. Their disguises were good. His Bzadian was faultless and his accent perfect. He went back over what he had said. Maybe it was the way he had said it? It couldn’t have been anything obvious, or Goezlin would have had them arrested immediately.

  Chisnall said and did nothing. Goezlin stared at him.

  Without warning, Fleming swung around, sweeping Yozi’s feet from under him with an outflung leg. He straightened and cannoned into Chisnall, shoving him into one of the guards. All Chisnall’s breath disappeared with a harsh cough and he sprawled backward over the alien.

  Fleming was running. Darting toward the narrow opening in the gate. The other guard was there and raising his weapon, but Fleming was too fast and too strong. He grabbed the barrel of the coil-gun as it came up toward him and wrenched it from the guard’s grasp. Swinging it around, he knocked the soldier to one side.

  Fleming was actually through the gate when the stock of a rifle caught him directly in the face. It must have been like running into a brick wall. He crashed backward.

  Brogan kicked the coil-gun out of the dazed Fleming’s hands and rested the barrel of her weapon on his forehead as he lay on the ground.

  “Good effort, Sergeant,” Chisnall said.

  Brogan inclined her head slightly but said nothing. She backed away a little and Fleming sat up. He spat out blood.

  One of the PGZ guards stepped quickly in and secured Fleming’s hands with a metal clasp before he was hauled back in front of Goezlin.

  “Get them inside, into the cells,” Goezlin said. He smiled, a thin line across his face. “Azoh would be proud, Lieutenant. If all our units were like yours, this war would be over already.”

  How true that is, Chisnall thought. “Thank you, sir,” he said, giving the Bzadian gesture of thanks, his right hand pressed flat to his heart.

  Goezlin turned without another word and followed the two prisoners, now both secured with the metal ties, toward the building.

  The gate ground to a close behind Chisnall and Yozi as they returned to the vehicles.

  “I will give you a lift back to your unit base,” Yozi said. “If there’s anything left of it.”

  Chisnall shook his head. “With the state of the roads, it will be faster for us to walk.”

  Yozi frowned. “Thirty-Fifth Scout HQ is in the northwestern sector. It would take you all day to walk there.”

  Chisnall was suddenly conscious of Goezlin, still standing on the steps of the building behind them. He shrugged sheepishly. “Of course. I am still a little lost here. This base is huge.”

  Yozi nodded. “It can be hard to get your head around at first. Mount up. Judging by the amount of damage in that direction, I think we will head out of the base, skirt around the outside, and come back in the northwestern entrance.”

  “That’s good of you,” Chisnall said. He pressed his hand to his chest.

  As before, Yozi sat up front with Zabet, the driver, while Kezalu manned the fifty-cal. Wilton climbed up with Chisnall and Brogan. The rest of the Angel Team climbed onto the following vehicle.

  Brogan shot him a glance as they climbed aboard. The last thing they wanted was to be taken to the headquarters of the 35th Scout Battalion, where they would quickly be recognized as imposters. But it would have seemed odd if he had requested not to go to the headquarters of their unit. And odder still if he had insisted on walking. Somehow they had to part company with Yozi and his team before they got there.

  And what about the traitor? What was he or she waiting for before making a move?

  9. THE DEAD DRAGON

  [0830 hours]

  [Exclusion Zone, Uluru Military Base, New Bzadia]

  THEY SAW THE CRASH SITE LONG BEFORE THEY GOT TO IT.

  It was just a thin tower of smoke in the distance, but with a word from Yozi, they changed course to investigate. The plume of smoke grew thicker, until they could see the crashed aircraft at its foot.

  It was a mess. A type three, the one they called the Dragon. A huge and heavily armed jet fighter that made up for its lower speed and lack of maneuverability with an awesome range of weaponry.

  Early in the Asian campaign, a single Dragon had taken on a wolf pack of Chinese jet fighters and sent them all crashing into the sea. This Dragon had not been so lucky.

  Perhaps it was the sheer weight of numbers of the attacking human aircraft or just a lucky shot, but the jet had clearly been badly damaged and was trying to make its way back to an airfield in the northeastern quadrant when it had crashed.

  Chisnall could imagine the crew nursing the injured fighter back home, realizing too late that the craft was past saving. That sickening feeling as, with the airfield in sight, the heavy airship just gave up and plummeted nose-first into the desert floor.

  A plowed-up wave of dirt extended like two pleading arms from where the big plane had come to rest. The nose of the craft was gone, mulched into the dirt by the weight of the plane behind it. The rest of the plane lay broken and twisted, jet fuel leaking from a broken line on one of the wings. Wires and tubing, the intestines of the great creature, spilled out from a jagged rent along one side. The innards were scattered across a hundred meters of desert.

  Zabet steered the patrol vehicle around in a sweeping curve and brought them up alongside the plane, just outside the wave carved in the dirt.

  “Perhaps a little more distance might be wise,” Yozi murmured. Zabet, eyeing the pool of jet fuel a few meters away, quickly complied. They stopped about twenty meters from the plane and dismounted.

  Five minutes was all it took to confirm that if the crew had still been on board when the plane had crashed, then they were now part of the desert. They wouldn’t have had a chance.

  Yozi scanned the desert in the directio
n from which the big plane had come.

  “If they ejected,” he said, “they will be out there somewhere.”

  “What about their personal locators?” Kezalu asked, peering up under the tail section.

  “Jammed, like everything else,” Yozi said. “We should have a look, in case they are lying out there, injured.”

  He glanced at Chisnall as if seeking approval, but it was clear that the decision had already been made. They climbed back on board the Land Rovers and started by following the furrow of dirt left by the fuselage of the plane. When that trailed out, they continued on the same compass heading.

  Yozi scanned the desert to the left with his binoculars, and Chisnall did the same to his right, although he felt the search was futile. The desert here was dotted with low scrub, and there was little chance of finding anyone. A rotorcraft could cover the same ground in a matter of minutes and would have a far better chance of spotting any pilots, if they had even got out of the plane in time.

  He said as much to Yozi as they approached the outer perimeter fence.

  Yozi said, “Of course, but it would have been wrong of us not to try.”

  Chisnall nodded. That was exactly what he would have said, under the same circumstances. He found himself warming to Yozi, despite everything.

  Yozi made a circling motion in the air with his finger, and the Land Rover slowed and turned back on its tracks. Kezalu was humming to himself again. He opened a utility pocket on his uniform and pulled out a slab of bakki, a Bzadian snack that looked like dried beetroot. He noticed Wilton watching, broke off a section, and offered it to him.

  “Your soul is warm.” Wilton gave the formal Bzadian thank-you and placed his hand correctly over his heart.

  “It’s a little old and chewy,” Kezalu said.

  Wilton took a mouthful and grinned. “After a week of combat rations, it’ll taste like mother’s milk!”

  The kid was good, Chisnall thought, using Bzadian slang effortlessly.